Anthropic today published the S-1 registration statement for its Nasdaq listing under the ticker ANT, reportedly targeting the week of 16 November. Markets expect it could raise as much as $100bn at a valuation of around $2tn, which would make it the biggest stock market debut in history.
The share count and price range are still to be set, but the shape of the deal is already clear.
Anthropic is asking ordinary investors to help bankroll one of the largest spending commitments any company has ever made, at a price of around $2tn, while warning in the same document that its growth may slow and it could need more money sooner than expected.
Frankly, it’s nuts.
Nobody is disputing that the business is extraordinary. The issue is who carries the risk if the spending runs ahead of the revenue. After this listing, the answer is the public.
The numbers behind the price
The growth figures are staggering. Revenue reached $16.3bn in the first half of 2026, up from $1.2bn a year earlier, and the company has told prospective investors that third-quarter revenue alone hit $16.8bn, with an adjusted profit.
The losses are just as eye-catching. Anthropic posted a net loss of $80.7bn over the first six months, although around $72bn of that was a non-cash accounting charge tied to the rising value of convertible notes.
To be fair, most of that $80.7bn is paper, the result of Anthropic’s own valuation soaring. Strip it out and the business still lost almost $9bn in six months, and the cash bill is only getting bigger.
The filing spells out how big. Anthropic expects to spend up to $120.5bn on Nvidia-powered compute from SpaceXAI into 2029, around $3.1bn a month once fully delivered, and up to $114.5bn with Google through 2033. Overall, it has committed to at least $518bn over a decade on cloud services, computing and infrastructure.
These are numbers on the scale of national budgets. The revenue growth is astonishing, but it has to stay astonishing for years to cover commitments of this size, and Anthropic itself warns that its growth rate may not be sustainable and could fall.
Control, income and dilution
The prospectus flags further pressure points. No dividend is expected for the foreseeable future, and the founders will hold 50.1 per cent of the voting power.
Public shareholders will be putting in the money without getting control, income or certainty. Valuations like this leave very little room for disappointment.
Anthropic has also placed 5 per cent of its shares into its own Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, with the board able to add up to 2 per cent more each time the stock rises 50 per cent above the previous milestone.
Directing a slice of the company to the public good is admirable. Buyers need to understand, though, that the fund is designed to grow as the share price climbs, so dilution is built into success.
The filing also warns of AI’s potential to pose catastrophic and existential risks to humanity, an extraordinary risk factor for any company seeking public money. It is a remarkable thing to read in an IPO document. Credit to Anthropic for the candour, but investors are being asked to price a technology its own makers say could go catastrophically wrong.
A referendum on the AI trade
This IPO is a referendum on the entire AI trade. If it soars, expect a queue of AI listings and even more capital piling into the theme. If it stumbles, valuations across tech could reset fast.
Last week OpenAI cut the valuation it is seeking from investors by $150bn to $1.25tn after pushback, according to the Financial Times.
A listing this size is also likely to find its way into index funds and pensions fairly quickly, so millions of savers may end up owning a slice whether they’ve chosen to or not.
The roadshow will show how much investors are prepared to pay for a future that hasn’t arrived yet. Adjusted profit is a start, but the question every investor should be asking is when it turns into real cash profit after paying for all that compute.
The IPO filing doesn’t answer it.
Nigel Green
Nigel Green is chief executive of deVere Group, one of the world's largest independent financial advisory organisations.
